Telecommunications carriers are required by government regulations to provide emergency calling services to their customers. In the United States and Canada, 9-1-1 is the official emergency phone number that callers can dial to reach dispatch personnel at a public safety answering point (PSAP). When a caller dials 9-1-1 from a telephone, the call is routed by a carrier to receiving equipment at a PSAP facility. A dispatcher at the facility answers the call and assists the caller with the emergency.
Frequently, operators must dispatch various types of first responder personnel to the scene of an emergency, such as firemen, police, or paramedics, to render assistance based upon the emergency communicated by the caller. While response personnel may be able to determine the location of the caller via GPS or other means, the response personnel may need to obtain other information from the caller to determine the type of emergency so that the appropriate first responders and the necessary equipment can be dispatched.
However, a problem arises if an emergency caller is disconnected from a PSAP operator before the operator obtains all necessary information, due to a dropped call, dead battery, or accidental hang up, for example. Thus, there may be circumstances in which the emergency personnel need to call back the emergency caller. Unfortunately, some callers have calling plans set to block incoming calls under certain conditions, such as during certain timeframes or after a predetermined number of minutes have been used. Other calling plans only permit incoming calls from particular phone numbers. These types of calling plans may be set up by employers for employee phones, or by parents to control their children's telephone usage. Unfortunately, emergency personnel or others may be unable to connect to communication devices with calling plan restrictions during an emergency.
Overview
A method of operating a communication system to handle call-back calls from emergency services to callers comprises receiving an emergency call from a caller for an emergency service, in response to the emergency call, modifying call controls associated with the caller, receiving an incoming call for the caller, processing the modified call controls associated with the caller to determine if the incoming call is allowed, if the incoming call is allowed, connecting the incoming call, and if the incoming call is not allowed, blocking the incoming call.
A communication system to handle call-back calls from emergency services to callers comprises a communication network and a call processing system. The communication network is configured to receive an emergency call for an emergency service from a communication device operated by a caller, and receive an incoming call for the communication device. The call processing system is configured to, in response to the emergency call, modify call controls associated with the caller, and process the modified call controls associated with the caller to determine if the incoming call is allowed. The communication network is further configured to connect the incoming call if the incoming call is allowed, and to block the incoming call if the incoming call is not allowed.